The following information is provided to horse owners making decisions for feeding their horses. The horse feed industry is worth an estimated $9 billion in annual revenue and there are many companies attempting to tap into this market and the competition is fierce. Because horses are considered livestock there are Read more…
This will be a “part deux” to the “Feed Tag Bingo” post. We’ll be looking at an actual feed tag and pointing out the games feed producers play with feed tags. The tag in question is from a rather popular local mill in my area and is for their “12% Read more…
There are currently hundreds of commercial horse feed formulations offered by just the major feed companies. If we include the smaller companies and local mills the number increases into the thousands. Owners use different criteria for making these decisions but the one I see most frequently is the feed tag. Read more…
There is much misinformation surrounding the primary commodities used in producing commercial horse feeds. Some of this misinformation comes from competitors within the industry trying to raise doubts in their competitor’s quality. Other sources flow from a conflation of consequences of feeding these commodities to species other than horses. Cats, Read more…
Every bag of commercial horse feed has a feed tag attached. A few companies print their feed tag information directly onto the bag. This information can be both extremely useful as well as misleading. Feed tags are largely misunderstood by consumers and this article should help provide some insight into Read more…
Historically, concentrated horse feeds were referred to by two numbers; protein and fat. This feed is a “12-6” and that feed is a “14-3”. These numbers represent the percentages of weight for protein and fat as minimum values of the guaranteed analysis on the feed tag. These are very important Read more…
There is no better core diet for horses than forage in all its forms. Pasture, grass hay, legume hay and forage replacements like beet pulp are an essential part of a healthy diet for our equine friends. Without a doubt the large majority, at least 80%, of what a horse Read more…
Since I keep emphasizing the importance of forage in the equine diet I thought it was time to post a little something about it. I want to apologize for the length of this piece and I considered breaking it up into a couple of different posts but everything is interconnected. Read more…
One of the most rewarding calls I receive is for senior horses. There is nothing that brings as much personal fulfilment as putting together a feeding program for a retired lesson horse that has spent the past 20 years carrying students. Think about the book that lesson horse could write Read more…
People often ask me “What is the best horse feed?”. My answer is always, “That depends on the horse.” The good news is that there are many great feeds to choose from to feed our horses. The bad new is that there are so many choices choosing the right feed Read more…